28/3/2017, Late this evening, UK Prime Minister Theresa May signed Article 50,
triggering the exit process of the UK from the EU. The letter was delivered to
Donald Tusk (Poland), President of the European Council, on 29/3/2017. The
two-year negotiation process was started; however after the inconclusive UK
General Election of 8/6/2017 this timetable was looking tight.

3/11/2016, Britain’s High Court ruled that the Prime Minister, Theresa May,
could not trigger Article 50 to leave the EU without Parliamentary approval.
This ruling was later upheld by the Supreme Court. This opened up the
possibility of Parliament severely delaying or even thwarting the Brexit
process.

26/6/2016The fallout from the Brexit vote continued. David Cameron delayed invoking
Chapter 50, which would kickstart a 2-year procedure to negotiate the UK’s
withdrawal from the EU. Cameron expressed a preference for his successor as
Tory leader to undertake these negotiations. Meanwhile EU leaders were
pressuring the UK to invoke Chapter 50 soon. The EU leaders feared further
‘Exit’ referenda in countries like France, The Netherlands, Denmark, possibly
Sweden, in Spain, Greece, and even Germany and the Czech republic. The Labour
leader, Jeremy
Corbyn’s, position seemed precarious as ten of his Cabinet resigned,
over his lacklustre support for the Remain campaign. There was debate within
the UK as to whether the Referendum result was actually binding, especially if
a UK General Election ensued within a few months, which itself would require
legislation to amend the five year rule for such elections. Also by this
afternoon, nearly 3.4 million people had signed a petition asking for a second
Brexit Referendum; some signatures were suspected of coming from outside the UK.

19/2/2016, UK Prime Minister David Cameron concluded negotiations for a
deal redefining the relationship between the UK and the EU. This was a
preliminary move before a UK referendum to be held on whether the UK should
leave the EU. On 20/2/2016 the date for this referendum was set for 23/6/2016.

4/1/2016, Sweden introduced border controls on the Oresund Bridge border with
Denmark to try and slow the influx of migrants. In response Denmark introduced
border controls on its German border. The Schengen ideal appeared to be
unravelling.

30/6/2015, Europe’s refugee crisis continued To this day, illegal arrivals from
1/1/2015 totalled over 340,000. 102,342 refugees from the Middle East and
Kosovo had arrived via Hungary; 132,340 from the Middle East, Pakistan and
Afghanistan areas had arrived via Turkey and Greece; 91,302 from Africa had
arrived via Libya and Italy, and 6,698 from Syria and west Africa had arrived
via Spain.

19/4/2015, The heaviest casualty incident to date of the ongoing unofficial
migrant sailings across the Mediterranean to Europe occurred this day, when 770
drowned as their boat sank off the Libyan coast. In September 2014 500 drowned
off Malta, on 12/4/2015 400 died as their boat capsized off Libya and on
3/10/2013 368 migrants drowned off Lampedusa. Between January and end-July 2015
187,000 migrants had arrived in the EU; 96,971 arrived in Italy, 88,695 to
Greece and 1,674 had arrived in Spain.

14/11/2012, Protests in Greece, Portugal and Spain against European austerity
measures.

7/3/2012, The UN presented its report on violations of the human rights of
gay people worldwide. Representatives of several African and Arab
States walked out.

1/1/2012, The Caribbean island of Saint Barthelemy seceded
from Guadeloupe; thereby leaving the
European Union.

31/10/2011, The global population
officially reached 7 billion.

1/1/2011, Estonia became the 17th country to adopt the Euro
currency.

14/9/2009, The UN adopted the principles of ‘Responsibility
to Protect’ or R2P. This
says that the sovereignty of States is not absolute in that the UN can choose
to intervene when a state fails to protect its citizens from mass atrocities
and human rights violations.

1/4/2009, Albania and Croatia were
admitted to NATO.

1/1/2009, Slovakia adopted the Euro, replacing the Koruna.

1/1/2007, Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union.

2/7/2005, Live8 Concerts, to raise
funds for Africa, were held in Berlin, Edinburgh, London, Moscow, Paris,
Philadelphia, Rome, and other cities.

29/10/2004, EU heads of State in Rome signed the Treaty and Final Act establishing
a European Constitution.

26/8/2002.The start of a ten-day ‘Earth Summit’ held by the UN in
South Africa. Delegates promised ‘action not words’. The Summit was snubbed byPresident
George Bush, who refused to attend.

2002, The International Criminal Court (ICC)
was established. Replacing earlier ad-hoc United Nations tribunals, the ICC was
set up to try individuals accused of crimes against humanity, genocide or war
crimes. It is located in The Hague, Netherlands.

9/7/2002, The African Union (AU) was
founded, as a successor to the Organisation
of African Unity(founded 1963, dissolved 2002).The AU was idealistically modelled upon the
European Union, with plans for a supranational government, administration, a
Court of Justice, financial institutions and a peace and security council.
There was also to be a pan-African Parliament, based in South Africa. However
the required co-operation between African states has not so far been achieved,

1/1/2002, The majority of countries within the
EU abolished their national currencies in favour of the Euro. Only Britain, Denmark, and Sweden retained the
Pound Sterling and Kroner.

26/2/2001, The Treaty of Nice was
signed by the 15 members of the EU, to enable the bloc to function smoothly
after the 2004 enlargement to 25 member states. The scope of the national veto
was reduced, and Parliamentary seat allocation for a 25-member bloc was agreed.

30/11/2000, Major demonstrations in Seattle
against the World
Trade Organisation meeting there.

30/4/1999, Cambodia joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), bringing the total
number of members to ten.

25/3/1999, The European Union adopted the Common Agricultural Policy, at a
meeting in Berlin.

12/3/1999, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic joined NATO.

1/11/1998, The
European Court of Human Rights was instituted.

10/2/1998, Maurice Schumann, European statesman, died.

2/10/1997, The Treaty of Amsterdam was
signed, further integrating the European Union.

8/7/1997, NATO invited the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland to join the
alliance in 1999.

13/12/1996, Kofi
Anan became the 7th Secretary General of the UN.

12/10/1999, According to the UN, the world population reached 6 billion.

18/6/1999, Anti-Globalisation protests in many cities around
the world, some of which became riots.

1998, The European
Central Bank was founded.

12/1995, The World Trade Organisation was officially founded.

1/1/1995, Austria, Finland, and Sweden joined the European Union.

1993, NAFTA, North American Free Trade Association,
was founded.

15/12/1993. Completion of the GATT Uruguay Round.

9/11/1993.The
UN said the number of refugees worldwide rose from 2.5 million in 1973 to 19.7
million today

1/11/1993.The European
Union (formerly EC) came into existence as the Maastricht Treaty came into
effect for its 12 members.

2/8/1993.The UK ratified the
Maastricht Treaty.

1/2/1993.The EC began
formal talks on admitting Austria, Sweden, and Finland by 1995.

1/1/1993.The European
Single Market came into operation.
Apart from the UK, Ireland, Denmark, and Greece, passports would not be needed
at frontiers within the EU. British shoppers began to take advantage of more
much relaxed limits on the amount of alcohol and tobacco they could bring back
from France.

20/9/1992.The
Maastricht issue split the EC, with France voting narrowly for
it but Denmark voting narrowly against it. The idea was to further integrate
Europe. British politics was also split with ‘Euro-sceptics’ on the
Conservative back benches harassing John Major, Prime Minister.

21/3/1992, The
US Census Bureau officially estimated the world population to be 5.4 billion,
of whom 1.2 billion were Chinese. It projected a world population of over 8
billion by 2020.

7/2/1992, The Maastricht Treaty was signed, founding
the European Union.

1/1/1992, Butros Butros Ghali, a 69-year-old Egyptian,
became the 6th General Secretary of the United Nations.

1989, The Financial Action Task Force (FATF)
was set up, following a G7 Summit. It is an inter-governmental organisation
aimed at preventing money-laundering. After the 9-11 attacks of 2001, the FATF
also took on the role of preventing funds reaching terrorist groups.

18/12/1989, The EC signed a
10-year trade pact with the USSR.

2/3/1989, All 12 EC nations
agreed to ban the production of CFCs
by 2000.

1/7/1987, The EC passed the Single European Act.

21/9/1986.The Stockholm Accord was signed, at a
35-nation conference. Advance warning of troop movements by NATO or the Warsaw
pact was agreed.

26/5/1986, The EC adopted
a starred flag.

1/1/1986.Spain and
Portugal became the 11th and 12th members of the EC.

4/1983, The start of the European Round Table (ERT). The Chief executive of Volvo organised
a meeting with the heads of 15 oher large European corporations, including ICI,
Fiat, Nestle, Philips and Unilever, to seek ways to ‘haronise trade rules in
Europe’. This was to enable these companies to reach the economies of scale
necessary to compete with non-European companies. The ERT presented its
proposals to the European Commission in January 1985. The ERT’s proposals
included the Channel Tunnel and the Denmark-Sweden Bridge, and a Europe-wide
system of high speed trains and road highways. The ERT also wanted, and got,
monetary integration and enlargement of the European Union.

7/7/1982, Hungary
became a member of the World Bank.

6/5/1982, Hungary
joined the International Monetary Fund.

23/2/1982. Greenland,
a Danish territory, with home rule, voted to leave the EC.

1981, World
population reached 4.5 billion, of whom 960 million were Chinese.

1/1/1981, Greece joined the
EC.

30/5/1980,EC Foreign
Ministers agreed to reduce Britain’s annual contribution to the EC by around
25%.

1/2/1973, The Common Agricultural Policy
of the EEC came into operation.

1/1/1973.Britain, Denmark, and Ireland joined the EEC, enlarging it from 6 to 9 countries.

17/10/1972. European Communities Bill received Royal Assent.

31/7/1972, Paul
Spaak died, aged
73. He had been one of the chief architects of the European Community (EC).

22/1/1972.Britain, Denmark, Norway,
and Ireland
signed the EEC Treaty – to join January 1973. Norway later
withdrew after a referendum showed a majority of Norwegians were against
membership. See 1/1/1973. As the British Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath
signed the Treaty of Brussels, he had ink thrown over him by protestors against
the redevelopment of Covent Garden Market.

23/7/1970.Membership
negotiation s opened in Brussels between the EEC
and the UK, Denmark, Ireland,
and Norway.
See 22/1/1972.

30/6/1970. Britain began negotiations to join the
EEC, following De Gaulle’s resignation in
May 1969. Ireland, Denmark and
Norway also began negotiations to join.

19/12/1967. Second French veto by De
Gaulle on British membership
of the E.E.C. The pound was devalued, and Harold Wilson made his ‘pound in your pocket’
television speech.

27/11/1967, De Gaulle vetoed Britain’s entry into the EEC.

8/8/1967, ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) was founded. The
original members were Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and
Thailand. Brunei joined in 1984, Vietnam in 1995, Laos and Myanmar in
1997,and Cambodia in 1999. East Timor
attempted to join, post-independence, but was blocked by Indonesia.

6/10/1966,The EEC published
an adverse report on the UK
economy; the UK
was trying to join the EEC.

10/11/1966,The UK held discussions about entry to the EEC.

1963, The African Development Bank was founded.
Based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, its function was to make loans at preferential
rates for African development schemes. Funded by both individual countries and
other multinational organisations, it began operations in 1966.

25/5/1963, The OAU (Organisation
of African Unity) was founded at Addis Ababa.

14/1/1963.De Gaullevetoed Britain’s
membership of the EEC. He said the UK was too close to the Commonwealth and
the USA, and not ‘sufficiently European’.

18/12/1962, PM Harold
MacMillan of the UK
and President
Kennedy of the USA concluded the Nassau Agreement, at Nassau,
Bahamas.This allowed the US navy to provide Polaris missiles
for the Royal Navy, normally operating under
NATO command.This Anglo-US collaboration was resented by General
De Gaulle of France, who saw it as proof that Britain was not
sufficiently European.Within a month De Gaulle had vetoed UK membership of the EEC, see
14/1/1963.

14/11/1962. Britain resumed negotiations to join the EEC. Macmillan and De Gaulle talked at Rambouillet
on 15-16/12/1962. However De Gaulle was
intransigent, fearing the UK would import US influence into Europe. De Gaulle
resigned in May 1969.

3/7/1962. France recognised Algerian independence, after a referendum; this also entailed the
departure of Algeria from the EU.

2/3/1962.The UK applied to
join the European Coal and Steel
Community. On 5/3/1962 the UK
applied to join the European Atomic
Energy Community.

14/1/1962.The European Economic Community agreed on a Common Agricultural Policy.

8/11/1961.Negotiations with Britain began in
Brussels to join the Common Market.

3/11/1961, The Burmese diplomat U Thant
was elected UN Secretary-General.

30/9/1961, The OECD (Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development) was founded in Paris.

10/8/1961. Britain first applied for membership of the EEC.

18/7/1961.The six Common Market countries issued the Bonn Declaration aimed at political union.

28/5/1961.Amnesty International was
founded in London.

14/9/1960,OPEC was set up by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
and Venezuela.

3/5/1960, The European Free Trade Association (EFTA)
was founded in Geneva.
It had seven members; Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the UK, Switzerland, Austria,
and Portugal.

23/2/1959.The European Court of Human Rights sat for
the first time.

16/4/1958. The EEC, the European Economic Community,
was set up. The original six countries were France,
Italy, West Germany, Holland,
Belgium, and Luxembourg. See 10/8/1952.

1/1/1958.The European Economic Community
came into effect. It then comprised
6 countries; France, West Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries.

25/3/1957.Six nations signed the Treaty of Rome to create the Common Market (EEC) and
Euratom. These were Italy,
West Germany, France, and the three Benelux
countries. The founding nations foresaw a union of some 160 million people, to
be developed over 15 years. There was also a shared atomic energy programme,
Euratom. Britain was notably absent,
preferring to create a wider but looser trading network involving the Common
Market, the Commonwealth, and others. Britain feared a supra-national
authority that would erode its sovereignty over domestic affairs. However the
PM, Harold
MacMillan, privately believed that the UK should have sought Common market
membership and now began to create the European
Free trading Area, EFTA, which included all of western Europe, and involved
less loss of sovereignty for the participating nations. A stand-alone Britain faced
greater threats to its trade and industry from a developing Common Market.

26/10/1956, The United Nations approved the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

7/5/1956.The
inaugural meeting of the Western
European Union Council.

1955, CENTO
(Central Treaty Organisation) was
formed. It was a political/military alliance, comprising the UK along with
Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan, whose purpose was to defend against any
possible aggression from the USSR. Iraq withdrew in 1958 and CENTO ceased to
exist when Iran also withdrew after the 1979 Revolution.

5/8/1955, European Monetary Agreement signed.

27/4/1955, The First Bandung Conference
ended (started 18/4/1955). This was a meeting of 29 newly-independent African
and Asian countries who were keen to distance themselves from the USA/USSR
superpower rivalry. Nations in attendance included China (Zhou Enlai), India (Nehru),
Cambodia (Sihanouk),
Burma (U Nu),
and Egypt (Gamal
Abd-al-Nasser). The presence of China signalled that country’s
determination to pursue its own brand of Communism, independent of Russia, The
Summit, held in Bandung, Indonesia, was a major foreign policy triumph for Indonesian
President Sukharno.

8/9/1954, The Treaty setting up SEATO (South East Asia
Treaty Organisation) was signed at Manila.

31/5/1954, The first Bilderberg Group meeting concluded
(opened 29/5/1954). The group, of politicians, royalty and industrialists, was
named after the hotel where this initial meeting, now held annually, first met;
the Hotel Bilderberg, Oosterbeek,
The Netherlands.

18/5/1954.The European Convention on Human Rights came into force.

31/3/1953, Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjold was elected
Secretary-General of the United Nations.

10/1/1953.First meeting of
the European Coal and Steel Community.

10/8/1952. Inauguration of
the European Coal and Steel Community.See
28/4/1949 and 16/4/1958.

27/5/1952, The European Defence Community was set up
by France, Germany, Italy,
and the Benelux countries.

4/2/1952, The United
Nations Disarmament Commission first met.

31/12/1951, The Organisation of
American States was founded in Washington DC.

1/7/1951.The Colombo Plan was
founded in Sri Lanka, to aid the development of south east Asia.

18/4/1951.The European Coal and Steel Treaty was
signed in Paris.
France, West Germany, Italy,
and the Benelux countries signed up.

19/9/1950, The European Payments Union was established.

9/5/1950.TheSchuman Plan
lead to the establishment of the European
Coal and Steel Community.

7/11/1949, The first meeting of the Council
of Europe; Spaak
was the Chairman.

3/8/1949, The Council of Europe came
into being.

3/5/1949.The Council of Europe was established,
after a ten-state conference in London.

27/4/1949, The Commonwealth was founded in London.

4/4/1949, The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington. NATO was set up
on 18/3/1949, by Britain and seven other European countries. Denmark had agreed to join on 25/3/1949. Eleven
countries signed in total.

25/1/1949.COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) was
founded in Moscow.

10/12/1948, The United Nations issued the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights.

16/4/1948.The Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) was
set up, see 14/12/1960.

17/3/1948.Britain, France,
and the Benelux countries signed the Brussels
Treaty, a pact of economic, military, political, and cultural alliance. The
Treaty came into effect on 25/7/1948.

2/9/1947, The Organisation of American States (OAS)
was set up.

11/12/1946, The UN
International Children’s Emergency Fund was set up to provide aid to children
in war-torn countries.

19/11/1946, The first General Conference of UNESCO was held at Paris.

4/11/1946. UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and
Cultural Organisation, was established, with headquarters in Paris.

19/9/1946.Winston Churchill, in Zurich, urged
Franco-German reconciliation and a ‘kind of United States of Europe’.

30/1/1946. UN General Assembly met for the first time, in London.

10/1/1946, The League of Nations was officially
dissolved, after 26 years, and replaced by the United Nations.

1945, The International Monetary Fund was founded. The World
Bank was founded. The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development) was founded.

26/6/1945, The
Charter for the United Nations was signed by the US.

25/4/1945, An international conference to establish a world
security organisation, the ‘United
Nations’, opened in San Francisco.

20/10/1943, The United Nations
War Crimes Commission was formed.

18/5/1943, UNRRA was founded.

11/1939, The Nobel Peace Prize
Committee decided that the annual Nobel Peace Prize would not be awarded this
year.

8/4/1938, Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, was born.

16/3/1933, At the
League of Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Britain’s
plan for a reduction in the size of national armies failed, because of
Germany’s insistence that its Stormtroopers not be included in the totals.

2/2/1932, The World
Conference on Disarmament opened in Geneva,

12/9/1931, Mexico
was admitted to the League of Nations.

1930, The Bank for International Settlements was founded.

5/9/1929.Aristide Briand, the French Prime Minister, proposed a United
States of Europe.

10/2/1926, Germany applied
to join the League of Nations, Brazil and Spain blocked Germany’s admission, in
protest at the plan to give Germany a seat on the Council, which they thought
they should have instead.

17/6/1925, Geneva arms Conference closed.

4/5/1925, Geneva Conference on arms traffic and the use of
poison gas inwar opened.

10/9/1923. The Irish Free
State was admitted to the League of Nations.

15/2/1922.The first session of the Permanent Court of International
Justice was held in The Hague, Netherlands.

17/12/1920, Albania joined
the League of Nations.

16/12/1920. Permanent Court of International Justice established at
The Hague.

16/12/1920. Bulgaria, Costa
Rica, Finland and Latvia joined the League of Nations.

3/12/1920, Austria joined
the League of Nations.

13/11/1920.The first full
session of the League
of Nations opened, attended by 5,000 representatives from 41
countries worldwide.

27/10/1920, The League of Nations headquarters moved to Geneva,

16/6/1920.At The Hague, the League of
Nations Permanent Court of Justice opened.

25/5/1920, The Hague was
chosen as the permanent seat of the League of Nations.

10/3/1920, The Netherlands
joined the League of Nations.

8/3/1920. Denmark joined
the League of Nations.

5/3/1920, Norway joined the
League of Nations.

1/2/1920, The first full
session of the League of Nations opened at St James Palace, London, overseen by
the British Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour. Plans were made for an
International Court of Justice.

13/2/1920, Switzerland
joined the League of Nations.

19/1/1920, Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary of the
United Nations from 1982, was born.

13/1/1920, Argentina joined
the League of Nations.

10/1/1920. The League of Nations, whose function was
defined on 28/4/1919, legally came into being at Geneva. It first met in Paris
on 16/1/1920, but was boycotted by the USA,
partly over the votes given to Britain
and the dominions, partly over the obligation by one member to defend another
if attacked in war.

11//4/1919. The International
Labour Organisation was established.

25/1/1919.The League of Nations
was founded.

22/1/1917, US
President Woodrow
Wilson delivered a speech to the Senate, ‘Peace Without Victory’,
condemning European imperialism and militarism and calling for a League of
Nations.

1913, Plans were drawn up for a worldwide map at a scale of 1:1,100,000. The project was
interrupted by World War One, but the United
Nations revived the project in 1953. The entire map series was never
completed.

22/1/1909, U Thant, diplomat and Secretary General to the
United Nations, was born in Pantanaw,
Burma.

18/10/1907, Plans were announced for an International Court of
Justice, to be set up in The Hague.

29/7/1899.At The Hague, a conference of 26 countries established a
permanent international court of arbitration.

2/10/1889, The first
Pan-American Congress met, in Washington. Its aim was to create closer relations
between the States of the Americas.

6/6/1882, The three-mile limit for territorial waters was
established by the Hague Convention.

5/8/1870, At a
public meeting in London, a resolution was passed calling for the formation of
a British National Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded in War. This was the
forerunner to the British Red Cross. This was seven years after the
founding of the International Red Cross.

29/10/1863. Swiss philanthropist Henri Dunant founded the International Red Cross
after witnessing the tending of the wounded at the Battle of Solferino, near
Mantua, north Italy.

1859, Henri Dunant travelled through
the site of the Battle of Solferino,
a few days after the actual battle in June; 15,000 lay dead and wounded, and
many of the wounded lay for days before anyone came to care for them. Many of
these died of their wounds before medical attention arrived. This sight led him
to establish the Red Cross.

16/4/1855, The Declaration of Paris was signed.

8/5/1828.Jean Henri Dumont, Swiss philanthropist and
founder of the InternationalRed Cross,
was born in Geneva.